He sighed: "What the Qing family said is very kind." Then he laughed: "Ma Qing is a pillar of the country. Who asked you to raise pigs? This person is really bold."

Ma Zhou immediately understood.

His Majesty deliberately disconnected from this issue, and obviously he did not make up his mind to solve the problem of salt affairs at this time.

He just casually said: "This minister is willing, not forced by others."

"It must be that Chen Zhengtai..." Li Shimin shook his head.

After the screen left the room and Ma Zhou, Li Shimin sat alone in the hall and fell into deep thought.

He also understood the truth that the salt tax was the most important support for the national treasury, and sooner or later the Tang Dynasty would face this problem.

Now, as it was decided today, the court began to use troops to Hexi, and might even use troops to the Turks. In addition, the canal needs to be widened, and there is no money available in the national treasury. If the salt well can be recovered, many problems can be solved.

But the problem is that it is not easy to cut off your arm.

He couldn't help but smile bitterly, lowered his head, and glanced at Chen Jiye's memorial.

The words in the memorial that made all kinds of treacherous and said that they didn't want to do it clearly came into Li Shimin's eyes.

Li Shimin pondered for a moment, picked up his pen, and replied in the memorial: "You will give it your own."

These four short words are the formal responses of Chen Jiye’s several times.

The general meaning is that you don’t whine at this matter anymore, and I don’t want to solve the problem, so stop talking, and solve your problem by yourself.

............

Chen Zhengtai is busy every day.

He soon discovered a huge salt mine near Chang'an.

This salt mine is almost unparalleled because it is rich in minerals and almost no crops grow on the land. It is naturally not worthwhile.

Although they are all called salt, the methods of taking salt in this era were only two types: seawater salt and brine salt. Mineral salt, which contains large nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium, will kill people after eating it, and is called poisonous salt.

Therefore, this large area of ​​salt mine outside Chang'an City was almost bought by Chen Zhengtai for less than tens of cents of money.

In his opinion, whether it is salt making in seawater or salt making in brine, it is not only inefficient, but also mostly produced coarse salt and green salt. It has a very poor taste and taste, it all depends on the conscience of salt traders.

Now almost all the aristocratic families monopolized the salt well and made huge profits. Since there was no salt well, Chen Zhengtai was determined to start with this worthless mineral salt.

To produce edible salt, the first thing to do is to remove the minerals in the mineral salt, and this is something that a person with a junior high school chemistry level can do.

Coincidentally, Chen Zhengtai's chemistry level is still in the third year of junior high school. No matter how many... it is really gone.

He called Chen Fu, recruited a few children from the Chen family, and then set up a simple tent here. Then he began to try to retrieve ore, then crush the mineral, and let someone burn a large pot, dissolve it, make it into brine, then filter, purify, and crystallize.

After several days, the snowflake-like salt was finally cooked.

Holding a handful of salt carefully, Chen Zhengtai seemed to see them turning into copper coins, which was particularly cute.

Chen Fu came up.

Chen Zhengtai said: "Come on, Ah Fu, you can eat."

"This... can you eat it?" Chen Fu looked at the white salt in Chen Zhengtai's hand suspiciously, with some doubts.

"Don't worry, I can't die."

Chen Fu was silent for a moment, obviously his mind made him feel a little overturned: "For... why did you let me eat it?"

Chen Zhengtai coughed: "Because I will give it to my father later."

"Oh." Chen Fu suddenly realized.

Then he was amused and smiled and said, "I understand, the young master is the most filial person, so let me taste it first. If there is no poison, I will respect it to Alang."

Chen Zhengtai nodded as if a chicken pecked at the rice, and Chen Fu looked indescribable cuteness when he thought.

Chen Fu gently dipped some white salt in his fingers, and was about to enter his mouth, and suddenly said, "Young Master, I won't die after eating it. This is made of stone salt, it's poisonous salt."

Chen Zhengtai admires his straightforwardness.

But he immediately pulled his face down: "If you don't eat, you will be beaten to death. Why do you do so much?"

Chen Fu no longer asked any questions, his fingers entered his mouth, sucked them, and frowned.

"How is it, how is it?" Chen Zhengtai was a little nervous. This was related to his father's official position and the wealth of the Chen family.

Chen Fu smacked his lips: "Salty, this taste...is great."

call......
Chapter completed!